


Long Shadows

by LookingForDroids



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), F/F, Ficlet, Post-MAG160
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-04-03 16:56:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForDroids/pseuds/LookingForDroids
Summary: Georgie’s home is a place of safety. So is Georgie herself.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	Long Shadows

The rules changed, on the day Eye opened.

It wasn’t gradual. There was no warning, just a cold wind and a sky split by a noise that wasn’t thunder any longer, a distant pipe and the baying of things that might once have been hounds and the inescapable sound of screaming. Every law of physics and every understanding of safety Melanie thought she could take for granted was abruptly overturned, and the only damn certainty she’s been able to come by since is that no one still alive and human can tell what game they’re playing now. Some people think they know, and sometimes it helps them for a while; those lucky or unlucky few who managed to survive the first day and keep on surviving have turned to desperate prayers and useless superstitions – silver jewelry and iron horseshoes, votive candles burning at every window, thresholds lined with salt. Out of all of it, there’s only one thing Melanie has ever found found that works: 

You can’t be afraid. You _can’t_ be. You can’t let yourself wonder if the earth will fall away and send you tumbling into the sky, or the dark will grow teeth and swallow you whole, because if you do then it will, and then there’s no escaping. Melanie manages that sometimes, when the world goes red instead of dark and the beat of her heart is drowned out by a haunting, reeling melody, but that’s dangerous, and she tries not to let it happen often. Georgie manages it always. She walks through the place that used to be London like she still knows where every road leads, and nothing tries to drag her down or pull her through a splintered mirror – and so the space around her grows into a little pool of calm, where things still make sense and nothing tries to eat you, and her house becomes a place with no fear, where you can lay down to sleep and know you’ll wake again. Stepping over her threshold is like crossing a bridge over running water in an old folktale, or touching home base in a child’s game. If you manage that, you’re safe. That’s the rule, the oldest one, the one that hasn’t changed: this place is _home_. The monsters can’t get you here.

It can’t last. Melanie isn’t stupid, and she understands the problem with safety built on a foundation of belief: one tiny crack, and next thing you know, every wall is crumbling. But it’s all they have, the two of them and the few survivors they’ve managed to gather, and for as long as it holds, there is canned food and plastic jugs of water and candlelight enough, or so she’s told, to keep the Dark away. It’s never quite routine, but it’s life.

Privacy is more difficult to come by, with people making camp in every room not devoted to supplies, but they make do. The house is full of odd crannies, storage spaces and hidden corners that smell like dust and floor wax. Right now, Georgie’s got braced against the wall of the broom closet, now repurposed to hold boxes of canned fruit and condensed milk stolen from what had been the local convenience store before it became a haunt for spiders instead. Melanie isn’t thinking about spiders. She’s doing her best not to think at all, just let her mind go blank. She’s got her skirt hiked up to her waist and her hands gripping the muscled curve of Georgie’s hips, guiding her as she grinds down slick against Melanie’s thigh, and everything is close and warm and filled with the sound of their mingled breathing. Somewhere out there, an inhuman howl tears open the night, and somewhere above them the Eye hangs open in its unending vigil, but this house has walls and a ceiling stronger than any salt circle, and as long as she can trust them, she’s safe. So she lets herself be safe – lets herself trust, lets the wall hold her up as Georgie pushes her underwear aside to circle her clit with calloused fingers, because this cannot last, but it’s theirs all the same, and nothing evil can touch them here.


End file.
